Felix Siauw


Felix Yanwar Siauw is a Chinese-Indonesian Islamic cleric, preacher, author and da'i, known for his affiliation with the Islamist group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, and his hard-line puritanical position on Islamic interpretations.

Early life

Siauw was born and grew up in a Catholic environment, however he became a lapsed Catholic before he converted to Islam. He started to recognize Islam in 2002, while still studying at the Bogor Agricultural University, and converted to Islam during his college days after meeting an activist of HTI. Siauw married in 2006 and currently has four children.

Career

Siauw is a popular Islamic preacher with the combined followings on his Twitter and Instagram accounts over 3.2 million people. He is also an author whose works mostly raise the topics and perspectives associated with HTI. Perspectives of this group had been criticized several times for inaccurate depiction of history. In June 2017, he criticized the government decision to disband HTI as weakening Islam.

Controversy

In 2015, Siauw declared that selfie is a shameless and unpure act, which evoked widespread national condemnation. In May 2017, the university event planned for featuring Siauw in East Java was shut down by the police presence, acting on the urges by the mainstream Muslims and nationalists.